Significant benefits can be realized from electrochemically measuring analytes in fluidic samples (i.e., biological or environmental). For example, individuals with diabetes can benefit from measuring glucose. Those potentially at-risk for heart disease can benefit from measuring cholesterols and triglycerides among other analytes. These are but a few examples of the benefits of measuring analytes in biological samples. Advancements in the medical sciences are identifying a growing number of analytes that can be electrochemically analyzed by, for example, determining analyte concentrations in a fluidic sample.
The accuracy of current methods of electrochemically measuring analytes such as glucose can be negatively affected by a number of confounding variables including variations in reagent thickness, wetting of the reagent, rate of sample diffusion, hematocrit (Hct), temperature, salt and other confounding variables. These confounding variables can cause an increase or decrease in an observed magnitude of, for example, a current that is proportional to glucose, thereby causing a deviation from the “true” glucose concentration.
Current methods and systems provide some advantages with respect to convenience; however, there remains a need for new methods of electrochemically measuring an analyte in a fluid sample even in the presence of confounding variables.